


Memory Boys

by ScarletSeas



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Books, Brothers, Dream is a bitch, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I basically made Karl and Ranboo brothers, Karl Jacobs Needs a Hug, Karl Jacobs-centric, Karl and Ranboo Bond Over Memory Loss, Kinda, Libraries, Panic Attacks, Puffy Sam and Karl are Good Adults, Ranboo Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travelling Karl Jacobs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29080269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletSeas/pseuds/ScarletSeas
Summary: Losing your memories hurts. It hurts losing things that you relied on so much. It hurts losing yourself. But hey, maybe these two boys can live through it. Even if they didn't mean to. The two of them can get live through it. Together.Yeah, so basically I thought about how both Karl and Ranboo worry about their memory and made a sibling dynamic outta it.
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Ranboo, Cara | CaptainPuffy & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs & Cara | CaptainPuffy, Karl Jacobs & Ranboo, Karl Jacobs & Sam | Awesamdude, NONE OF THAT!, Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo, No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Sam | Awesamdude, Ranboo & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit
Comments: 21
Kudos: 544





	1. An Open Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want Ranboo to have an adult figure that he can trust and I think that can be Karl.

Ranboo didn’t know Karl that well. They never talked and he couldn’t really gauge the other that well. But he did get some things though. He realized Karl was very happy. The man was always smiling through whatever he did. So when he heard muffled crying coming from Karl’s Library on Party Park or was it Party Island? Ranboo couldn’t remember- he knew it wasn’t good.

* * *

It was getting harder and harder to remember after every travel. No matter how hard Karl tried he would just lose more and more. And then having to recite everything he could immediately after, it hurt. But he couldn’t lose himself!

He carefully placed the book for The Lost City of Mizu onto the shelf and broke open his library wall. He clumsily placed the wall back and sighed as he sat down. He took out his diary and looked over the pages he had written. He gripped the book as he read the pages. He was going to forget himself. There’s no way that he’d forget so much. This traveling was too much for him. But he  **has** to. He  **has** to help people. He  **has** to fix these things. He couldn’t let his friends become that way. No way in heck would he allow that to happen. So maybe it was worth it. Maybe it’s for the best if he forgets himse-

a knock

Barely audible but oh so clear. A knock for Karl. Someone knows he’s here. He swiftly hid his diary, wiped away his tears -when did he start crying?- and put on a smile.

“Karl?” Oh, that was Ranboo, “Uh, are you okay? I was coming by and I heard crying? I don’t want to intrude or anything! But I heard crying and I wanted to check on you. Are you okay? I can leave if you want!”

He broke open the dirt wall and looked up to see the half-enderman standing there.

“Oh, don’t worry about that Ranboo! I was just reading some sad books, sorry for scaring you,” Karl lied. No one was supposed to know. 

Ranboo’s eyes flickered away from Karl’s. Shoot, right Ranboo doesn’t deal with eye contact well.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry Ranboo. I forgot that you didn’t like eye contact. Sorry!” Karl carefully angled his eyes away from Ranboo and gestured to his library, “Wanna come inside and read with me?” Yes, cover it up with acting open. That’ll work!

“I actually have to be getting home soon…” Ranboo said.

“Okay, that’s fine. You’re always welcome to visit here if you need a place to relax. I know things here can be stressful sometimes,” Karl said back. Come to think of it, Ranboo had only been here for a couple of months and he saw the fall of L’’manberg… Geez, these kids get put through a lot huh?

Ranboo nodded and started walking back towards the crater. Karl put back up the wall and sighed as he went back to his diary.

* * *

Ranboo is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. He may be oblivious, forgetful, naive, panicky, and anxious. But he’s not stupid. He knew Karl was lying to him, but he didn’t really care. Everyone has their secrets, Prime knows he has his. But hey, at least he has a place to read!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :D


	2. Laughter!

Quiet. Everything was so quiet. Quackity was nowhere to be seen and Karl had no clue where Sapnap was. Ever since they left, everything was so quiet. Karl didn’t like the quiet. He never got how people could just sit around, not doing anything. But he’s been doing it a lot now. Sometimes he’d just sit around his library trying to turn the pages of a book. He could never quite get any of the stuff in his head though.

Quiet had become custom to him. So when he heard laughter coming from across the L’manberg Crater he immediately became interested. Who was laughing? What was so funny? He swiftly made his way around the crater, forgetting about how he was planning on traveling again, and following the sound. As he walked it became clearer and clearer who it was. He had a knack for recognizing people’s laughs, and that was Ranboo.

He made his way to Niki’s old bakery and saw Ranboo sitting there, reading a book. Next to him was a small black cat who immediately made eye contact with Karl. The cat then went back to looking at Ranboo.

“RAAAANBBBOOOO!” Karl yelled, forgetting that people don’t often yell at each other to say hi.

Ranboo screamed and fell on his back, tossing his book away from him. Karl quickly ran over to help the boy sit back up and grabbed the book.

“Sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to scare-” Karl started only to be interrupted by Ranboo.

“KARRRLLL!” He said laughing as Karl fell down, startled.

“Ranboo! How could you!” Karl joked through his laughter, “Why!”

Ranboo was also laughing as the cat began pawing at Karl’s foot, “Couldn’t help myself man. Enderchest no!”

Karl chuckled as Ranboo picked up his cat, “Sorry about her she’s mad you interrupted our reading time.” Oh?

“Reading time? Whatcha reading?”

Ranboo picked up the book that he’d dropped on the sand and held it up to Karl. The cover was a volleyball with a sword stabbed into it. Behind it was a treasure chest. A pretty pattern was above the images that looked like ⏁⊑⟒ ⏚⟒⏃☊⊑ ⟒⌿⟟⌇⍜⎅⟒. It was kinda familiar to Karl though. Above the pattern were the words ‘The Beach Episode.’

“Weird title right?,” Ranboo said before opening the book again, “I checked, it’s not part of any series or anything. But it’s really funny. Like it breaks the fourth wall a lot and there are some points where the narrator begs the characters to move on with the plot? It’s really nice. It’s not a series though even with the title. Enderchest likes it too so I read it to her a lot.” 

Karl laughed as he saw Enderchest nudging at the book with her paw.

“Enderchest, you’re not the only one with needs here. We’re talking here.” Ranboo pet Enderchest as he continued talking, “It’s kinda a pirate story and kinda a treasure hunting story? It’s really confusing on what it’s supposed to be, but basically these five people are bored on a beach trip and then the narrator asks if they want to go on an adventure. Yeah, the fourth wall is broken a lot. And they do, but eventually these two characters start acting more and more piratey as the five look for the treasure. Eventually, one of them finds the treasure and is told by the narrator to keep it for himself, but he shares it with his pirate friend! I really like it and so does Enderchest.”

Karl nodded before he spoke, “Could I see it? It seems really interesting!”

Ranboo gave the book to him and as he opened to a random page he realized something, “Ranboo this isn’t in English.”

The half-enderman’s eyes widened as he looked back to the words, “Not English!? Are you sure Karl?”

“Mhm.” Karl pointed to a word on the page, ⌇⏃⟟⌰⟟⋏☌, and looked in Ranboo’s direction, “What does that say?”

Ranboo looked at the word and quickly responded, “Sailing! What can you not read it?”

Karl’s eyes widened and smiled, “Ranboo, what do endermen write in?”

“Ender… But I’ve never been able to understand Ender before! Huh.”

“That’s so cool dude! Hey, can I see you read Ender?! I kinda wanna be able to read it!”

Ranboo smiled as the both of them stood up, “Uh, sure! My enderman friends say it’s really close to English so it might not take that long. Let’s try it!”

Karl threw his arm around Ranboo’s shoulders, bringing Ranboo down a few inches so they could be at similar heights, “C’mon buddy! Let’s go to my library. If your friends are right this’ll be a piece of cake!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ya know how The Beach Episode wasn't in Karl's library? Yeah Imma say that Tales From the SMP wasn't canon, but I had to put it in somewhere soooo.


	3. Study

It was not a piece of cake.

“Ranboo are you _sure_ this isn’t right?” Karl asked as he pointed at the words he had written.

Ranboo sighed for the fifth time, “Karl I’m _sure_.”

Karl groaned as he laid his head on the desk. He’d brought it and a couple of chairs into his library after sitting on the floor got uncomfortable. The two of them had been working on Karl learning Ender for the past hour, and let’s just say Karl was _not_ impatient. He’s just stressed. Totally…

“Karl, how do humans learn English?” Ranboo asked, pulling up a chair next to Karl and letting Enderchest walk on his shoulders, “I don't really remember how I learned English _or_ Ender so…”

Right, Ranboo had memory problems too. Huh, Maybe Karl should ask about how he remembers stuff.

“Well, I don’t remember much about learning it because I was so young,” Karl said reaching across the table to grab more paper, “But I do know it was something like-” Karl began drawing out the English alphabet and made lines under each letter, “We’d rewrite the letter a lot to remember it, but I don't think that’s gonna work anymore…”

“Why’s that Karl?” Honk. He couldn’t tell Ranboo about his memory problems. He wouldn’t judge him, but he’d ask questions and Karl was **not** good at lying under stress.

“Well, uh, your brain is all squishy and like a sponge when you’re a kid!” Nice Karl, that’s tottttaalllyyyy going to be supported by the books you have in your library, “So I don’t think it’d work anymore! Wouldn’t be able to learn it quickly ya know?” Karl hesitantly laughed, hoping Ranboo bought his lie.

“I mean I guess that makes sense…” 

Karl then had a distraction, “Oh! Ranboo why don’t we look around for more books written in Ender? I know there are some here that aren’t English so how about we check? Get you something to read!”

“Uhm, sure!”

* * *

As far back as he could remember, not far but still, Ranboo had always loved it when he read specific books. He’d look at the intricate writings in Galactic from enchanting books and gasp at how nice they were. The detailed and informative words jumped out to him, even if he could never talk about them to someone. Galactic was an interesting alphabet. It was used for many different languages. Mobs, enchantments, certain people, it was always nice to hear or read Galactic. He could always recognize it, unlike Ender apparently. 

So when he saw a book in Karl’s library in Galactic he was overwhelmed by excitement.

“Karl! Karl look!” Ranboo ran over and thrust the book into Karl’s face, then shyly moved it back when Karl stepped back, “Sorry. You have a book in Galactic! It’s so pretty isn’t it? OoOo Galactic books are always so cool to read. You have one, that’s awesome! Hey, can I read it to you?”

Ranboo could tell that he was jumping a bit on his heels, but could you really blame him? It’s Galactic of course he’d be happy!

Karl stared at the book for a bit, “Sure, but could I look over it for a second?”

Ranboo handed over the book and watched as Karl flipped through the book.

“Yeah, sure you can read it out, but I don’t really think we’d have time to finish it,” Karl said, handing back the book.

Ranboo took it quickly and ran to sit in a chair, “Sit sit sit sit! Lemme tell you the story of ‘The Masquerade!’”

* * *

Karl never expected to ever need to learn a new alphabet other than English but here he is. Ranboo had left the library nearly three hours ago and it was night now. What had Karl done in those three hours? Studied. He studied two alphabets. 

Ender and Galactic.

The quiet was nice for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you reading :D   
> P.S. please ignore me retconning the title of the book here I was planning for it to be the next Tales but I felt bad not having updated so I threw out the idea. Then 2 hours later Karl posted the title lmao :] So ya'll get my original idea! :D


	4. Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, hc that may actually come true go burrr
> 
> This chapter is really just a way to set where we are in time. Yeah basically I'm skipping over the Ranboo visiting prison stream. The next chapter will be after this. This isn't a description of the stream tho.

The Story Was A Confusing One

One neither Karl nor Ranboo could really get just by looking at the pages of words. At least not right now. Endless, confusing details. Blood, masks, wealth. Torturous actions. Hurting in the name of something truly not understood. A face wrapped in blood-red vines. Slowly eating away at the person. And pain. Why does it hurt? Why does it hurt? Please he can’t handle it. No. No. No. No. No.

Ranboo wakes up in a cold sweat in an obsidian room. Staring ahead. A sign. ‘You are fine’. He has one goal. Confront Dream. 

.  
.

.

It was a horrible idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when your random idea for a family dynamic may actually happen in canon so you're thrown out of your writer's block. Anyways, thanks for reading :D


	5. Imagining and Ignoring

The scream was loud. The scream was familiar. The scream hurt his ears so so much. So he ran.

Ran around the crater. Ran through the docks. Ran farther until the scream was so loud it sounded like he was right next to it. But where is the owner of the scream?

He sat on the beach and waited. And waited. Until the sun came up and down. Until the screams stopped. But no one was there. He didn’t see anyone. He sighed and stood up. He told himself he had been imagining it. 

So why did it hurt to walk away from the beach?

* * *

A day later and he was waiting for Ranboo to come to his library when he felt a familiar tug. Sharp and dangerous it hurt to deny it. Not right now. He can’t go right now. He had to show Ranboo how he learned Ender and Galactic! He can’t go. It’ll just have to wait for him to be ready.

A pounding on the dirt walls and a, “KAAARRRLLL I’m here!”

Karl giggled as he ran to mine the wall, “RAAANBBBOOO! C’mere i want to show you something!”

The boy walked in and Karl couldn’t help but notice the bags under his eyes and the posture that was much too curled in to be healthy. He frowned at faded burns, just barely visible, that ran down Ranboo’s cheeks. He brushed it off and prayed he was just imagining it. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

“So what do you want to show me?” Ranboo asked as he sat at the table.

Karl smiled as he quickly grabbed a paper and pen. He carefully wrote out ‘⊑⟟ ⍀⏃⋏⏚⍜⍜! ⋔⊬ ⋏⏃⋔⟒ ⟟⌇ ☍⏃⍀⌰ ⟊⏃☊⍜⏚⌇’ and under that sentence wrote ‘!¡ᓭᓭᓭℸ ̣ , ∷ᔑリʖ𝙹𝙹 ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴𝙹∷↸ᓭ ᔑʖ𝙹⍊ᒷ ╎ᓭリ'ℸ ̣ ╎リ ᒷリ⊣ꖎ╎ᓭ⍑’ He brought the paper back to Ranboo and laid it down.

Ranboo looked at the lines and seemed to recognize the Galactic.

“Yo! Dude you learned Galactic? Hold on let me read it… Wait. Did you learn Ender?”

Karl’s smile widened, “Yeah, how’d I do?”

Ranboo stood up and nearly threw himself onto Karl for a hug, but refrained.

“This is super cool! Wow, and your writing is so good for someone that was just introduced to the language. Ooo, think of all the secret messages you could put in books with this writing! I do that in my memory books with Ender.”

Right, memory… Karl was then aware of the pull again. Maybe…

“Does keeping track of your memories in the book help a lot?” Yes Karl, hide it but still ask because you’re curious. Pretend you aren’t asking because you’re afraid of losing yourself.

Ranboo started playing with the fabric of his shirt, “Well, it does. But since it’s, well, a book that other people can open and read I have to hide it. Kinda why I sometimes write in Ender? But it’s hard to differentiate between which parts I’ve written in Ender and which are in English. But yeah, it does help.” Ranboo shook his head a bit before continuing, “Anyways show me any books you have in Ender or Galactic. Those are always more mysterious and stuff!”

Karl smiled as Ranboo ran around trying to find a book in one of his other languages.

He could ignore the pull for a little while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this will be a battle of 'who's going to ask for help first' what of it? Thank you for reading :D


End file.
